2007-02

I am pleased to invite you to
address seminar proposals for the ESSE conference in Aarhus. Please note
that a proposal must be submitted by members of two associations
of ESSE. In our case, the other association may even be the Slovak
SKASE. The submission deadline is the end of May. For further
information see the conference website http://www.esse2008.dk/preliminary_announcement.html
, which also includes the e-mail address for submission. So far only
one proposal for a seminar in linguistics has been submitted.

As a member of the Academic Programme Committee, I am ready to support your proposals.

The
conference will include 4 plenaries, 12 lectures, 12 round-tables, and
60 seminars. Poster sessions should be added to the programme

The Academic Programme Committee (APC) for Aarhus will be made up of six members. They are: Dominic
Rainsford (Chair; literature), a linguist from Aarhus, a cultural
studies person from Aarhus (their choice is the responsibility of
Aarhus), Warwick Gould (organizer of ESSE/8; literature), Marina Bondi
(linguistics) and Martin Procházka (literature).

- Seminar
proposals on specialised topics within our field will be made jointly
by two ESSE members, preferably from two different National
Associations. The degree of international appeal and participation will
be one of the criteria used by the APC to select proposals. Proposals
will not be entertained if they come from two people in the same
institution.

- Some
degree of flexibility can be exercised with regard to admitting
co-convenors who do not belong to ESSE, if and only if their presence is
felt to be important for the good functioning of the seminar.

- A seminar proposal will include the topic, the names, affiliations and addresses of the two convenors and a 100-worddescription of the topic

- Seminar organisers/convenors should plan their session/s to allow ample time for discussion and debate.

- Convenors may notrun more than two sessions for their seminar topic

As a
minimum, a seminar should expect to offer 4 presentations; as a maximum
for a seminar run as a double session, there should be no more than 10
presentations

The Canadian Studies Centre at Masaryk University is pleased to announce a conference on “Images of National, Ethnic and Individual Identity in Canada”,
to be held, in cooperation with the Embassy of Canada in the Czech
Republic and the Association Gallica, from 25 to 27 October 2007 at
Masaryk University, Brno (Czech Republic).

Conference topic

Multicultural settings provide a good source of different materials
and approaches for studying questions of identity. The individual – be
it as author, filmmaker, painter or philosopher – is located at the
axiological intersection where identity is created through the
interaction of or contact between various ethnic, language, cultural and
national identities. Images of the self enter into opposition to the
image of the other. Social norms and their codes create stereotypes that
may be confirmed, rejected or transformed through individual
creativity.

The cultural space of Canada provides a diversity of possible
interactions ranging from those between the Anglophone and Francophone
spheres to those between these two cultural spheres and the identities
of immigrants, aboriginal peoples and other socially marginalized
groups. This may be seen very clearly in literature as well as in the
fine arts and in the general cultural and social consciousnesses.

The primary aim of this conference is to sketch the development of
identity in Canadian culture during the past half century in four
fields: literature, film, the fine arts and historical discourse.
Emphasis should be placed on the creative potential of the question of
identity as a source of new approaches and experiments in scholarly
research.

Languages: English, French

The conference registration form along with abstracts of papers (250
words) and a one-paragraph CV should be submitted by e-mail
(vurm@phil.muni.cz) to the organizers by 31 March 2007.

Registration fee: 30 euros (to be paid upon arrival at the conference itself)

Reduced fees for members of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies and for students

On
April 12, 2007 Masaryk University in Brno will present an honorary
doctorate to Professor Peter Newmark of the University of Surrey.
Masaryk University is honouring Professor Newmark, a native of Brno, for
his major contributions to the theory of translation as well as his
extensive cooperation with and contributions to the Department of
English and American Studies at MU’s Faculty of Arts over the past forty
years.